I do not know if everyone who uses Simmodder99's Populous 2 Plus mod for TSMP&N has the same problem as I, but it would seem likely due that there is nothing that I have done, or could do that could cause the problem, please allow me to explain...

You may have seen in Furnish mode when furnishing the Throne Room, some red boxes not visible in Game Mode/Kingdom mode. You can see them in Buy de Bug, too. These red shiny boxes are markers for the guards who stand watch in the Throne Room and Reception Hall. There are supposed to be 6 red shiny boxes in the Throne Room (6 guards) and 4 red shiny boxes in the Reception Hall (4 guards). But there are not that many in MY Reception Hall. I ONLY have 3 red shiny boxes, BUT I have 4 guards there, so one of them is constantly mulling about, staring at other guards, and looking so confused and lost, and ends up getting in the way of my hero sims who are trying to accomplish their tasks, especially my monarch.

I think this is not the ONLY misplacement of these red shiny boxes, btw. It seems that my game has either spawned too many guards for the Throne Room as well, or Simmodder did not include enough red shiny boxes for them, of which NONE can be purchased either in furnish mode, or Buy de Bug, although there are green shiny boxes which can be, but for what their purpose is, I have yet to discover. They do not act as markers for sims at all. I tried but nothing occurred in which it was shown their purpose. They were ignored by sims.

This problem is not new, btw, but I noticed an issue exactly the same at the kingdom Entrance or Exit to the Villiage (Shoppe, or patrolling the road to either Crafthole or other territory beyond). For a long time I watched 3 guards, 2 having a post, with one mulling about in the exact spot, but staring at one or the other of the 2 guards standing at their posts, appearing in confusion, and sometimes obvious frustration, as if wondering why the bloody blank that blank blank doesn't move out of my watch post! The extra guard for a lot of the time stares at the decor I built in the center of the front gates, and sometimes eventually wanders off, or into the Tavern if its been built. I hadn't until recently put this problem on to Populous 2 Plus, as just recently I came to realize what the red shiny boxes were for, that being the place a guard is to stand, so a marker for them. I learned I could move the red boxes around, to rearrange the spot in which the guards stand, as they are often exactly in the way of where I put furnishings, they stand too close to the walls, so I moved them. THESE boxes CANNOT be SOLD nor Bought, so I did not delete any of them.

My game play is often frustrating due to the lack of enough red shiny boxes for all the guards intended to be participants in the game. ESPECIALLY in the second quest in which is the starter of the war, in which the monarch and the two arguing factions cannot reach an agreement. This is because the Reception Hall is closed off to the default guards who watch over the Hall because a new security team dressed either as Fools, or in Gold Muscle Armor depending upon the selection made by the monarch for security during the meeting between the Pirates and The Guild. The NEW but shortly present security team are all that the game allows to guard in the Reception Hall in this quest.

SO WHERE DO THOSE 4 GUARDS END UP DO YOU THINK???? YEAH, THE THRONE ROOM! And there they cause a LOT of problems. They are so confused as to what they should do, guards constantly switching places, mucking about, and most annoying of all, is they end up trying to help themselves to the cask, I've had guards become hungry, which if not being controlled by the Watcher are not supposed to do, they are supposed to be kept fulling content in hunger and energy by the game, so in hunger have actually cooked in the monarchs ovens, are on or at his tactical map table, chatting with the peasants, blocking doorways, dancing to a Lute Players tune, sword fighting, fistfighting, reading books, taking up space and overfilling the Throne Room, everything EXCEPT doing their job!!

I notice also now at the Docks, where I used to have 2 guards, there is ONLY 1 at any one time. There are 2 red shiny boxes located at the stairs at the Docks, yet only one guard either at night, or day. Sometimes NO GUARD is there at all. By the way, at the front gates at night, only 1 guard is there. 3 guards in the day, with only 2 red shiny boxes to mark where they should stay, but just 1 guard at night????? This is LUNACY for what cut purses, and other security/safety threats do you ever see loitering in entrance locations to endanger your hero sims (or at the cave) in the DAYTIME???? I see NONE. They try to hide in the dark of night! Is this not so? So how is one guard at night going to protect any sim/kingdom????
They can't!

SIMMODDER99! Please can you correct this in your mod Populous 2 Plus, or update it? For so long this has been troublesome for me, and more guards than I can remember have taken up much of my hero sims with swords time during their executions. NEEDLESS executions! Now that I have distinguished their lack of guilt in the troubles their lack of doing their RESPOS has caused to me and my sims in perhaps a 100 kingdoms, or quests, I might feel just a slight frustration and sadness at their executions....there was no other reasonable option to take other than to try and remove them from court, but to kill them. But as the game just spawn their replacements, the execute By Sword option failed to solve the problem. I thought to lock them in the Knight's barracks but depending on his situation, marriage/children/ etc. this option is not always viable, or possible. And it is ridiculous that a Watcher should need to do this in order to make the game less tedious.

I really do not want to lose the extra benefits the mod Populous 2 Plus adds to my game, hence why I only came SUPER close to removing it, and not removing it point blank.

Please update the mod with the proper amount of red shiny boxes, Simmodder99. My sims and I would be grateful.

Thanks, Dear.

Xeny

Below I have added 2 screenshots with a diagram I drew in order to plainly show the reason my game has become somewhat stressful. Its merely two images of what I explained above. But VISUALS always seem to get the PICTURE across to another much more quickly than words.

PIC TWO: There are, or WERE actually 10, yes TEN guards during The Incident Quest, 4 of whom should not have been there at all, but in the Hall. Let us see what number 10 was doing instead of her job of protecting the kingdom of Savvion, shall we?

Ah, there she WAS in the front garden area playing..........CARDS! I'll bet my kingdom's enemies cried at her funeral, they loved her abilities so much!

I shall try and remember that patience is a virtue! LOL TC, Simmodder. Thanks for reading.

Updating for any possible TSMP&N gamers who are interested in any possible future outcome of this dilemma mentioned above:

It seems at this much later date that it is up to me to find a solution to my kingdoms trouble. The author of the mod in question must be quite busy. I can only guess.

I have completed the kingdom Ambition above, and had thought of two possible solutions to my issue above concerning the extra guards who have no place to stand as they guard any parts of the kingdom in which they are obligated by the placements of red shiny boxes.

First considered attempt for a solution was to carry over each under compensated NPC guard, so the game will NOT spawn or RE-spawn anymore NPC guards to take the place of any who were extinguished in a manner generally abhorred by realities main stream society....that way the Game Could Go On, without the mods programmed amount of guards, in which otherwise mucked about, in a total state of confusion, or else causing havoc and trouble in much of my hero sims' plans, causing this watcher to have to take measures of certain kinds of abilities to get them out of the way, in order that my game play can continue for the best interest of my hero Sims, an example of their disturbances of my game play, is when they lock up the tactics table and I am forced to pause my game rest the invading confused slacker in doing their job guards, and possibly take constrol of them shortly and teleport their partying butts far away from the location in which they were blocking my hero Sim from performing a task necessary/required by the game. Plus more!

I decided not to try this possible solution when using Populous 2 Mod, as I would end up with unwanted Sims, so delete them I would, but worse than that is I would continually each game played have to do this same action and wait long periods of time in-between sim menu changes, as I do not use Grims Core Interactions menu but perhaps a time or two throughout game play as finding and getting the correct response is too slow, so my default Interactions Menu is the one made by Chickie and Shimrod, Both Forsaken Socials. Much smaller and faster to use, with almost the same responses, and tweaking abilities. Exiting out of Grims Core Interactions Menu or entering it to use (enabling it, or disabling it) makes my game freeze for a time, usually about 5 minutes each time I either enable it, or disable it. The options menu remains stuck on my monitor screen for that length of time before going away. Too much BS in continuing to try and play my game to a satisfactory level, so I use it as little as possible.

My second consideration and what I am trying now, is returning to Populous, the first mod before P2+. I haven't yet achieved the Reception Hall as I have just begun the Watch for it Legendary Traits Ambition (for the 4th time, LOL another story) as My Lord Xylan Darksword is still happily messing about in First Steps with his long time knight Reigh Nigh, and his friend of eternity Peteran Priest Lagger Beer. Their presence tends to keep Xylan preoccupied with them rather than speedily gaining his XP.

But my thought is to check and verify in Populous 1 the red shiny boxes numbers to see if they match up to the amount of guards Simmodder programmed his mod to be assigned to guard the locations he set them to guard. So, I am expecting and HOPING that in Pop 1 there will be the 4 boxes necessary for the 4 guards programmed to guard there, and not the low count of 3, that Populous 2 plus includes. It will not be long before I find out. When I do, I shall inform this post. Hi Post, how are you....hmmm, no response. I suppose it can't talk...I'll post it anyway...but since no author of the mod in question has been about, it seems, the end result will not matter, because without a means to correct the error, I will either be forced to move on in my games unhappy and dissatisfied as I use the mod, or I stop using the mod, and hope I find as much pleasure in a different form of game play where my monarch must return to the default single servant, and adviser, and/or I figure a way to force servant labor in game...I actually have a very near ability to almost do this, and so do all of this games players who also use Grims Core, though you may not realize it. Yeah, its a bit like slavery...it is

Well, hopefully a solution I haven't yet fathomed will find er way to me soon....TC Y'all

My Red Shiny Boxes Troubles are OVA! Chickiepoo errr Ms ChickieTeeta FINALLY has pointed me in the right location to allow the purchase of red shiny boxes in Buy de Bug. The item is shown in the form of a shield the colors of orange and yellowsih, hence why I was unable to see its presence.

The information she passed to me is this below, so if you also have difficulties in your game due to the lack of enough red shiny boxes, you can also follow ChickieTeeta's information below:

"The red box is in buy debug on the same row as the green box. It's symbolized by the knight's sword and shield icon. Has the name 4296110836541067001."

Thank you MS Chickie-a-doo! Even honey cannot be as sweet as you!

I'll just have to get meaner with any guards who refuse to stand in their Red Shiny (new) boxes, if they refuse after the struggle I their Watcher have endured, and then also having purchased their feet a brand new home!

I am so glad that after all this time this thread has helped someone. I still have issues with guards not doing their jobs but instead acting as citizens of the kingdom, doing all the things they are not supposed to do, like read, play cards etc. However, I have come to realize WHY the non-default guards act this way. It is because Simmodder assigned sims to be guards while using Populous mods who ARE in fact CITIZENS by game default. So just because Simmodder gave these sims a job to do as in being a kingdom guard in TSMP&N does not mean that their default behaviors have changed, and become that of a guards default behaviors.
No, they have actually become citizen guards, who know how best to behave as a citizen and little on how to behave as a guard. There-in is where the main problem lay, not overly much on the red shiny boxes. They are helpful, but not overly so. To help my problems with misbehaving guards I have removed their ability to sword fight, which stops them from walking off their post at any time they desire to dominate the practice dummies, and prevent other sword wielding sims from using them at needed times. They are more likely to remain at their posts. Hope this info helps you, too.

To remove their sword fighting ability one must use TZDynamicsProfessions.package mod. You can download it here:

Thanks again, Xeny! If not for this thread, heads would roll in my kingdom all the time. I already put a farmer in the stocks for eating my monarch's venison pie.Things can only go downhill from there.